Clouds of Witness Part II

 Wimsey and Parker start to investigate the death of Cathcart, but Gerald keeps insisting that he did not do it but he is not saying where he was that night.  He claims that he had a letter from an old  college friend telling him about Denis' card sharping but cannot produce it.  Peter tries to speak to Mary but she seems ill and hysterical, and he is concerned when he finds silver sand of the sort  that is in the conservatory, in the laundry chest just outside her room.

He feels sure that she is lying about what happened that night and that Gerald is lying too.  Then he and Parker find a small charm in the conservatory, a diamond and emerald cat -.  It is an expensive trinket but noone seems to admit to owning it.   On making inquiries in the village, the 2 detectives hear of a man who was riding a motor bike around the area.   Then Peter walking on the moors, talks to a local farmer, Mr Grimethorpe who is a ferocious and bad tempered middle aged man, and who has a much younger and more beautiful wife.   He begins to wonder if perhaps Cathcart was having an affair with Mrs Grimethorpe and that the man followed him and killed him but it seems impossible to prove.  

Bunter on Peter's instructions tries to find out more about Lady Mary, by chatting and flirting with her maid.  Ellen tells the valet that Lady Mary wasn't all that fond of Cathcart, and that she had only become engaged to him when her brother Gerald had put his foot down about her relationship with George Goyles, a socialist activist whom she had known in London.  Ellen is decidedly contemptuous of Mary's interest in socialism and does not believe that Mary had learned much about real life during her time working as a nurse in the War.   The maid finds her young lady moody and bad tempered and does not think that she is grieving over much about Denis. Ellen also mentions something that leads to Peter discovering that Mary had knelt in blood and got  a stain on one of her skirts.  He begins to wonder if possibly his sister might have been involved in Cathcart's death.